I’m Reading Your Call Yet Again… But I Just Saw You Replied To My Ask In Feb! But Yesss I’m Patiently

Okay maybe a bit random but I’m currently exploring the whole brocedes lore more deeply and something I’m curious about, and I wondered if you had any thoughts, was do you think Toto had a clear favourite during the 2013-16 era and if so who? Front what I can vaguely remember at the time as a casual viewer, almost every Lewis fan was convinced Toto was favouring Nico and giving him preferential treatment but I always put that down to their whole victim complex of thinking everyone’s working against Lewis. There were times when Toto gave Nico a proper public bollocking (such as Spa 2014) which definitely wouldn’t indicate he was in any way favoured.

When I look at Toto and Nico now (side note, their podcast together gave me WAY too many brainworms), Toto does seem pretty fond of Nico and definitely lets him get away with so much shit that he wouldn’t let other journalists. However I don’t know if that still necessarily means he ever preferred him over Lewis?

To me it was pretty clear that Niki favoured Lewis imo but I’m still not sure on Toto. Do you have any opinion on that?

short answer to did toto favour nico over lewis? lol no.

longer answer: look at the merc team orders in 2013, where lewis -- who had yet to win a wdc w/ merc yet or establish himself within the team as First Driver and was equal w/ nico -- was favoured over nico for the podium. nico who has been the the team since it's return to f1 in 2010, scored their first points, podium, and team.

longer longer answer: CC'ing @keepthedelta

Nice, smart, multilingual cosmopolitan, a future charmer and champion - definitely sounds like Nico, alright 🥹🤍

Nico Rosberg was already sure of his plans at the age of 15 - "My goal is F1"

By Raila Kinnunen for Apu, posted 28 November 2016, originally written in 2001 (x)

Nico Rosberg became Formula 1 World Champion on Sunday night. The Rosbergs, Keke and Nico, are only the second father and son duo in history to both win the F1 championship. Apu met 15-year-old Nico in Monaco and is now re-running the story to celebrate the historic championship.

Keke Rosberg sighs deeply and says that it happened yesterday on a farm in France: a son beat his father 6-0 in tennis.

The gust echoes with both regret, the nagging thought of his own aging, and pride in his son. But Dad quickly recovers and, under the cover of his walrus moustache, his mouth turns up in a grin. Yesterday may be the most illegal time to play on a fast surface, as long as he pays for the pitch, he chooses the surface.

It's the same turn of events that awaits every father. Keke is 52, Nico 15, the son is almost a professional tennis player, having played since he was two, and in the last couple of years he's closed the gap on his dad: 170 centimetres against 176.

But when Keke is told that if Nico loses next time, the loss will be intentional and the tax will soon be paid in the form of "Papa, how about a scooter, a party…", Dad gets nervous.

"A year ago, we almost had a fight when my son announced a couple of weeks before his 15th birthday that you must be thinking of buying me a scooter as a present, I've been thinking about it, don't buy it as I won't have time to use it anyway! And Nico didn't even know that I had already arranged it. "After digesting the story for a while, I asked if anyone had threatened to scrap or steal the scooter. Something like that must be behind this, because he can't be that sensible. And that's what got him angry, claiming I underestimated him. "For me it was once the most important thing in the world to have a moped at 15, and this one says it's not worth it! Maybe he gets to ride so many other motor toys that the normal desire of a normal teenage boy to get a ride is already satisfied," Keke muses.

The story is actually a very typical example of the relationship between the men in the Rosberg family. There is partnership and love, the difference between generations, eras and situations in life, and a father's wonder at these.

That's what it's all about: winning

Nico Rosberg was 11 years old when he won the French karting championship in his second year of driving. He started cornering on a karting track at the age of two, around the same time the kid was using a tennis racket the size of himself to pull 50 metres of well-placed serves. I can testify to this as an eyewitness.

"Tennis was the other option for a long time. I was too small for tennis at first. I was very short until I was 13 and then I suddenly stretched," says Nico, making the all-important whoosh sound. "At some point, I decided that driving was the choice after all. That's the goal, I'll try to do as well as I can and then see how far I can go. I play tennis for fun now, and football. "When I won the French championship, I had an awful lot of fun. Winning is amazing, so sweet! The feeling is great, the whole atmosphere. That's what it's all about, winning. The funny thing is that in tennis, winning doesn't bring nearly the same joy. I guess racing is about the whole package, the pace and everything else. It simply feels good," Nico describes. "Sometimes when you feel like you're driving to the limit, everything is going smoothly and all that's left is the speed and the driving, it feels great. But that doesn't happen very often," Rosberg Jr. regrets.

He is a nice-looking young man in his last moments, somewhere between childhood and manhood. His body still has a cherubic softness, his blond hair curling in the same pattern as Keke's, which has begun to grey elegantly at the temples. His behaviour is almost that of an adult: a straight look, a brisk handshake, good manners, clear speech and then, in the middle of it all, he gets excited and starts giggling like a brat. Quite disarming.

And the eyes, they're a combination of green and blue among the curled lashes.

"Yeah, and grey. At least that's what the girls have said," Nico enlightens me and beams happily.

So Nico didn't want the scooter that people use to shuttle through the narrow streets of his hometown Monaco. It will be more than two years before he gets behind the wheel of a car. Does he mind?

"No, there's plenty of excitement to be had in Papa's car!"

Keke, the 1982 Formula 1 World Champion, one of the most brilliant and accomplished riders on the track, is a legendary and terrifying rider in civilian life. So ferocious, in fact, that wife Sina and Keke have jointly decided that to save their long marriage they will no longer share the same car. Sina is scared to death of Keke's driving, and Keke is uncomfortable in the passenger seat - so they take off in two cars, or in different modes of transportation altogether.

After receiving a burst of honesty, Keke calls himself an even worse hooligan behind the wheel.

"Nico certainly won't learn anything worth repeating while riding with me!" his father confesses.

"My dad is always telling me, 'don't learn anything from me behind the wheel.' I'm not scared at all when I ride with my dad, my trust in him is complete. He drives fast, but I trust him more than anyone else," says Nico. "Obviously, I'm not going to drive on the road like my father. First of all, I would never be able to pick up my mother, and I probably wouldn't even get a car!" the boy reckons.

How do father and son differ as drivers on the track?

"That's quite different from me. I was fierce and wild, the boy is totally controlled, calculating, and never looks fast on the track, you can't see how fast he is with your eyes," Keke defines when the main characters of this story were interviewed separately.

Nico never saw his father behind the wheel of a Formula One car, Keke quit when Nico was one and a half years old. As a DTM driver, he got to know his father.

"Dad is a bit of a bzzzzzz," Nico describes with a wasp tongue, "crazy, or not crazy but aggressive and wild while I'm calmer. Dad says that Alain Prost was very similar—I don't mean to compare—but that he thought Prost was also very calm, untempered and icy."

When it is said that his father described him as a calculating driver, Nico briskly asks what calculating means, explain.

He does the same a couple of times during the interview. When an unfamiliar English word comes up, he immediately asks what's that, explain.

The father tells an anecdote about the same thing.

"I have a friend who is totally impressed with the way Nico does things. He took Nico to a board-level meeting, so a big conference table, five adults and Nico. The idea was, of course, to leave a good impression of yourself, as you usually do when you want something, right? "I was really proud of the kid, but the water is pretty deep when you throw someone that age into a situation like that. My friend was speechless, told me that Nico did fantastically well and that it was the fact that he said ‘I don't know’ when he didn’t know that impressed him the most. He doesn’t try to pretend to play a role and be knowledgeable when he doesn’t know."

There you have it, you can see how successful you have been at parenting!

"Successful where? We have not raised a son. He's probably grown up under the influence of his environment, his friends, their parents. We haven't had to raise him once yet!"

Sina Rosberg, pretty, elegant, and slim, happens to arrive at this very moment on the balcony of the Rosbergs' studio apartment home in Monaco.

"We have never had any problems with Nico. He hasn't been mean, late, cheated, caused worry - not even now, even though he is in puberty. No worries whatsoever," his mother marvels. "When Nico was two years old, everyone said, wait until he's three and you'll know what the problems are. When he was five years old, they told you to wait until he was six, or nine, and at puberty you'll know what the trouble was! Now I just wonder how long you have to wait!"

Putting on the brakes next year

Nico is in tenth grade at the International School of Nice, where he is taught English and French. Next spring, he will have his matriculation exams, and because he skipped a grade at the suggestion of his teachers, he will finish his schooling before he turns 17.

Nico is now in his first year in Formula Super A, driving for Mercedes Benz and McLaren's teammbm.com team, as one of the junior drivers of Keke Rosberg’s team, alongside Lewis Hamilton, a 15-year-old dark-skinned Englishman, the other junior driver. There are 14 races during the season, with World Championship races in Canada, France, Italy, Belgium and Japan, plus six races in the Italian championship series and a couple of other races.

On weekends, he either competes or tests. Most of the testing is done at the team's home track near Venice, but recently Nico went to Montreal for a couple of days to test Bridgestone tyres.

"I thought I'd put the brakes on my driving for next year, so I can finish school in good shape. I’ll still drive, but as little as possible. Once school is over, I'll concentrate on driving hard. I'll still be so young, 16-17 years old, that it won't make sense to go to university yet." "Even if I do well in driving—which is my great hope—I will still be doing something else all the time. I'm very interested in aerodynamics, I like physics and mathematics. I'm going to look for university courses related to these, for example six-week courses in the summer. And then another course at a business school, maybe in Monaco or Germany. There are often suitable breaks while driving," Nico plans. "In any case, I would like to go to university and get a degree. Because what will drivers do when their career is over? My father was lucky to find a career in driving."

Do you have as good a business instinct as Keke?

"Absolutely," Nico laughs. "I'm studying business at school and I'm top of my class. I'm very interested in the subject, let's just say I'm excited, but I don't know how far I'll go yet."

Keke, the first Finnish athlete who knew how to make money out of sport, how to handle money, and make it work, answers the same hereditary question like this:

"At that age, how would you know? He's a thrifty boy, that's for sure. Otherwise, I can say that he hasn't inherited much from me, judging by his school performance. There are a lot of absences because of driving and yet his school results are really good! "The certificates came last week, and Nico warned me that tomorrow it's coming, and it was scary good! Maybe he’s so ambitious at school with the absences being exceptionally high. Or maybe a little bonus of such a hobby is also the ability to focus and set goals. "Never have I had to tell him to do some homework, but ‘that's enough, it's so late you're going to bed.’ That a boy of that age should be dragged away from his books, there was no such thing in my day!" his father wonders.

In almost identical words, father and son describe on successive evenings how meaningful it is to have two plans for the young person's future, A and B. If one fails or circumstances change, the second plan is put in place.

"I don't push or advise. The boy does what he wants. I hear much more about his plans for the future from my friends than directly from the boy, with whom he discusses them in the sauna in the country. Apparently it is easier to discuss and spar with them and when they ask questions, he answers." Keke knows that when dad asks questions, his mouth goes agape.

Nico says he has only just now realised the joy, benefits and advantages of sports.

"I look at my friends whose lives are dominated by school. They go to school in the morning, come home, do their homework and go to bed. Weekends are spent preparing assignments and holidays catching up on backlogged studies. I don't think you can live like that. That’s how youth is wasted and ruined! "I think it's nice to be able to take a break from school, do something completely different and enjoy it. "I don't really know how I'm going to get through my homework in the time I have to do it. Every night I work out, take a 45-minute swim and play football or tennis. On the weekends when I'm driving, I don't think for a moment about school, and I still have no problems at school. Teachers don't give me any slack or leniency for my absences—I have to keep up with everyone else," says Nico.

Short-haired little baby

The Rosbergs speak German at home, Sina's language.

Keke grumbles that he was in a terrible situation when he fell into speaking German—a language he had gotten out of at school by telling the old maid that he would never need one— when he really wanted to speak English, an easier and more familiar language.

"I was probably so blindly in love that I chose her language, and once you've said yes, you can't change it."

At the wedding, Keke does remember saying 'I do'.

"And you [Sina], who always protested against everything rigid and formal, answered the priest's question with "why not?", Keke still marvels.

Keke also regrets that the teacher from Iisalmi died before the cosmopolitan, who had moved to Germany, could confess to them that he had made a colossal mistake.

So Nico, who has dual Finnish and German nationality, learned two languages in parallel, German for the parents and English for the nanny, and then, as the environment shifted from home to yard to school, French. The three languages are still on equal footing. A couple of years ago, Italian was added to the mix, which Nico picked up from his best friends. Just the other day he announced: "From now on, please only speak Italian to me.”

In Finnish, he only gets a few words.

"I really got an earful about it ten years ago when someone in Finland found out that Nico doesn't speak Finnish. There were a lot of scolding letters. I think the language decision was quite sensible: one more language would have taken away far too much capacity. If the boy ever wants to move to Finland to live, I'm sure he'll learn the language too. The likelihood of him settling in Finland is quite low. Unless some pretty girl tempts him, and if she does, he's sure to be able to speak the language," says the father.

It is only in the last few months that Nico has become enthusiastic about Finland. He takes his dictionary with him on his travels and is very interested. Jatta Rosberg, Keke's younger sister, who first lived in London and married an Englishman, then divorced, moved to the outskirts of Nice, married a Belgian and now works in Keke's office, has been teaching her son Nikolas, a couple of years older than Nico, to speak almost perfect Finnish. Of course, things were easier in those days, when there were only two languages, English and Finnish.

Nico was motivated to learn Finnish for many reasons: to get to know Keke's mother, Grandma Lea, better, to have his own special language with his cousin Nixu. But the main reason is very clear.

"I want to be Finnish. In the world of racing, I want to move and be known as a Finn, not a German. I can't really explain why. Part of the reason must be that there are so many Germans, being Finnish is more fun!" Nico reflects.

So maybe one day we will hear the Maamme song when Rosberg Jr. climbs the highest podium?

"Let's hope so!"

"In any case, I think it would be wise to learn Finnish. I only know a few words. Bun, potty, short-haired little baby. The latter came from when Nixu and I were joking on the bus with a guy who had shaved his head bald. When there was nothing better to do, Nixu taught me: short-haired little baby. It would be nice to surprise Grandma Lea one day by speaking at least a little Finnish! I'm not afraid of grammar or pronunciation, it's in my head somehow, because I hear my dad speak Finnish every day."

Keke is very calm about Nico's preference for citizenship.

"At some point in the future, the boy will have to think about whether, if he goes to Germany to drive, he should be an exotic Finn or a German who’s more interesting to the sponsors. I can't answer that, and I don't think it's a burning question at all at this stage. Either you are a good driver or you are not."

Nico, when you watch a hockey match between Finland and Germany, which side are you on?

"In this case, you should be on Finland’s side, because they are so much better. In football? I haven't had time to pick a side because it's so funny to watch my parents in that situation, it's hilarious! I suppose I wisely try to be neutral halfway through. No, of course I would hope Finland would win, because that would be a surprise and newsworthy!"

And when you watch teammates Finnish Kimi Räikkönen and German Nick Heidfeld on the Formula 1 track, who do you root for?

"The Finn of course!"

Your cousin Nixu said that Mika Häkkinen is like a big brother to him, that they spent a lot of time together before he got married. What kind of relationship do you have with Mika?

"Not that close at all. Nixu is Mika's friend and the difference comes from the fact that Nixu speaks Finnish and it's easy for Mika to talk to him. But Mika is by far the best, I respect him enormously as a driver. I don’t like Michael Schumacher. Of course he is damn good, but I don't like his character and his style. Schumi doesn't seem fair, but what luck he has!"

Scared, of course

Keke Rosberg's team has three divisions, two junior drivers, two lower Formula drivers and two DTM drivers. Keke also manages Mika Häkkinen and Olivier Panis in Formula One, Kalle Palander in alpine skiing and partly handles Jyrki Järvilehto's affairs.

He is now rarely seen in F1, as Nico's racing schedule swallows up a couple of weekends a month.

"Nico already does the tests on his own, but I go to all the races." It's actually a deal with Sina: if the son drives, the father goes with him.

According to Keke, it's quite easy to keep the roles of team boss and father separate, as for Nico he's always first and foremost the father.

"The separation became even easier after Nico fired me from the mechanic job, and it didn't take long to get fired. At one of the French championships, when the front wheel came off, my son announced that it might be better if you didn't touch the car. I forgot to tighten the wheel. I'm not mechanically gifted at all," says Keke.

Keke's father Lasse, a veterinary surgeon by profession, competed with his son year after year. Keke often went along on his father's nightly sick trips, not so much to meet the cows, but because he was allowed to drive his father's Peugeot on the gravel side roads, kept secret from his mother.

"Nico has had a professional mechanic for four years, I used to have a veterinary mechanic from one year to the next. The biggest difference between my time and now is the professionalism of the work. We were hobbyists, they have computers and tuners, they have a lot of material, the drivers are involved in the development of the machines. I got the number 24 engine for the World Championship, the one that no Italian or Central European wanted. "When I was 28-29 years old, I was at the same level of technical understanding and comprehension of the material as Nico is now," Keke explains.

When Keke failed at the races, father and son sulked for three days, not talking to each other when he failed like that.

"I've always told Nico about these things. Yes, we may have a quiet life, but luckily I'm not a mechanic, I'm not in the line of fire and partly to blame. Sometimes, during the weekend, I say, 'I wonder what I'm doing here when you won't even talk to me! Good morning you have said today, nothing more.' The boy is so in his own world. "Of course a father is scared, it's only natural. When two cars go around a bend side by side, the insides turn. Then there's no other role in your mind than that of a father. The top speed in karting is not huge, 125-130 km/h, but the cornering speeds are tough. Fortunately, nothing out of the ordinary has happened to Nico. A few times he's been to the hospital for a mid-race X-ray—all fine. Nothing has been told to his mother. "Many times while I was standing there on the track, it also occurred to me that my father never saw Nico drive anything, he died just before Nico started. I think he would have liked what he saw," Keke says.

You can't watch Nico drive. Not on the track and not on TV either, when he moves to the televised leagues.

"There are mothers who want to be there and see everything and then there are those like me," says Sina. "I'm scared when Nico drives, it's terrible. I was there sometimes when Nico was younger, and I was terribly unhappy if Nico was unhappy when he was unlucky. And the parents would fight amongst themselves that your son was blocking our son's way, pushing! "When Nico was little, I was like a hen, always spreading my wings to protect the chick. Now Keke plays the same role, he is the rooster, ready to defend the chick and the rooster has even bigger wings," Sina defines.

Nico says that when things go very wrong at the races, Keke leaves him to his own devices.

"Usually Keke waits for me to start ranting, and then he says it's not the end of the world, that these things happen," Nico explains.

Rosberg must be beaten!

Is the Rosberg name a joy or a burden?

"In the beginning, I was worried that the name was definitely a burden," says Keke. "The attention Nico got as a ten, eleven year old was definitely a burden. Soon it became a burden in another sense: in many races you could see that they had nothing else in mind but to beat Rosberg. Today, in the world of karting, it no longer matters, since Nico stands so firmly on his own two feet. When Nico moves to the big cars, the same thing will happen again. First you get too much attention, then it's Rosberg's turn to get beaten up, and then he stands on his own two feet," Keke continues. "And there is no way to prepare a boy for that. He will walk there himself and learn. Next time it will be easier, Nico will be older and stronger to understand and accept it."

Nico himself has a much more positive view of his surname than his father.

Obviously it has been an advantage. It's probably impossible for me to even assess what the benefits are.

Is it obligatory?

"Of course it means you have to maintain a certain level, you are being watched. And maybe someone wants to pick on you. I hope one day to have a reputation and a name as my own person, so that people don't see me as just my father's son, but as an independent athlete. All will be well the day they say he's a pretty good driver and, by the way, Keke’s son, if you didn’t happen to know! "I've had more of a problem with always being the youngest and smallest in everything I do. It's hard to fight against the bigger ones, they were always pushing and shoving me off the track in the beginning. I'm a Rosberg and the youngest of the bunch, so I have to earn double the respect of others! "At the front? First some lower formulas, I'm too young for F3 or Formula 3000. No point trying to get in too early when I can't get to the top yet—what would I do in the meantime? I'd better go step by step, I've got time. The goal is definitely Formula 1," says Nico Rosberg.

By the end of the year, I'll be trying to explain to Keke and Sina what a great son they have, a nice, smart, multilingual cosmopolitan, a future charmer and champion.

Sina has the final word.

"Nico has inherited his father's intelligence."

Pause.

"Because I still have mine."

HOW DO YOU LOSE 26 PODIUMS!??!!

McLaren: You forget to cherish them

Umm, who’s body are we talking about here? Because all three persons he’s being shipped with are turned towards him 😅

his whole body angled towards carlos 🫠

Excerpts from a lovely article in The Athletic by The New York Times: “Ferrari’s prestige lured Lewis Hamilton – and cost Carlos Sainz his seat”

Part 1/2: “A ‘Smooth Operator’”

…Only as the details emerged and fandoms reacted to the news on social media, Carlos Sainz became collateral damage and was left to grapple with the harsh truth: he had become Ferrari’s third choice driver for the future despite achieving something no other non-Red Bull driver could in 2023: Win.

…Sainz spoiled Red Bull’s perfect season with a win in Singapore, but as many fans will recall, it wasn’t a runaway. The Spaniard started on pole but needed to switch up his strategy. In a calculated move, he kept former McLaren teammate Lando Norris within DRS range — a counterintuitive move that helped Norris fend off the chasing Mercedes duo of George Russell and Hamilton.

Sainz needed to slow down enough to keep Norris within range but be fast enough to not allow the McLaren to overtake him. It’s more difficult than it sounds, and it’s the kind of strategic maneuver that showcases Sainz’s talent.

…Over the course of his F1 career, Sainz has become known for his methodical approach, calm attitude and thoughtful feedback. He’s been consistent each step of the way, leveling up his game and adapting to a team’s environment. Looking back on his (so far) three-year stint at Ferrari, his journey has been marked with highs and lows. He outscored Leclerc in year one, but the Monegasque outqualified and beat Sainz in year two. Come 2023, the Spaniard struggled during the first half of the season but was consistent. He found his groove after the summer break and led Leclerc heading into the Singapore GP weekend. Leclerc ultimately finished the year six points ahead of Sainz, who recorded a DNF in Abu Dhabi.

It’s not a subpar performance. Leclerc and Sainz created one of the strongest, most complete pairings on the grid. The pressure of being a Ferrari driver is widely known as everyone scrutinizes the team, and Sainz consistently was competitive against his teammate, sometimes being the stronger Prancing Horse driver.

See Part 2: “The Next Chapter”

In another life,

Maybe the rivalry stayed on track

Maybe each other’s wins didn’t cause a crack

Maybe his words and departure have been enough

Enough for a chance to get each other back.

Louder, please! 🥹

No but Rosberg though… pretty son of a world champion racer (so pretty that the rest treated him like a girl and used the nickname “Britney” as an insult)… the weight of expectations on his shoulders… becoming best friends with the man who would go on to become THE F1 supernova while they were both still sweet little boys… having to reccon with that as they grew and not knowing how… the relationship turning sour publicly for the whole world to pick apart and laugh at… getting constantly compared to the four “once-in-a-generation” talents racing in his years (Lewis, Seb, Kimi, Alonso) and always coming up wanting… Michael Schumacher publicly rejecting him in favour of his wünderkind Seb… no wonder this man almost killed himself to win that world championship (to prove to himself and to the world that he could, despite everything) and then immediately dipped. I have to admire his drive and mental strength, regarless of what anyone might say of him.

Sainz Sr. spoke about Lando to skysports and it’s so sweet 🥲

"He's, first of all, a super driver, and, more important, he's a nice person - it is a pleasure always to spend time with him, to play golf with him.

"I know he's a good friend of Carlos, and in that circle, I am a little bit closer to him - he's a super guy and super intelligent.

"He's, for sure, one of the best drivers out there, and it is just a matter of time [before he takes victory], and I'm sure when it comes [the opportunity], he will grab it, and it will be great for him and all the fans."

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/12964357/carlos-sainz-sr-lando-norris-first-formula-1-grand-prix-win-is-a-matter-of-time

🥹🥹🥹 Thank you for sharing with me!

CarLando - more than friends, a lot more ❤️🧡

carlos's radio message of “ gap to lando every lap" and carlos intentionally slowing down just enough to keep lando within drs range , lando understanding the signal. when told by his race engineer about the gap (0.8) carlos goes like “ it's on purpose ”. do you understand how much coordination, trust and intimacy you have to have with THAT driver to have that amount of telepathy with? like. nobody apart from CarLando could pull that off. i repeat, nobody else.

what do you MEAN lando is out to dinner with carlos’s friends and family to celebrate his win and their 1-2 wHAT DO YOU MEEEEAN

source: carlossainz55 (instagram)